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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492590">Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starculler/pseuds/Shortculler'>Shortculler (Starculler)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flash Fiction Friday [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Time Travel, kind of a mix between a fix-it and a time loop</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:56:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>395</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492590</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starculler/pseuds/Shortculler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick tries, and tries, and <i>tries</i>, and refuses to stop until he gets it right.</p><p>Until he saves them all, no matter how many times it may take.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flash Fiction Friday [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866400</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for <a href="https://flashfictionfridayofficial.tumblr.com/post/639105755669299200/do-you-hear-that-ticking-its-the-clocks">FFF prompt 81: Turn Back Time</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do it again.”</p><p>“Dick—”</p><p>Dick slammed a fist down on the console. The metal crumpled under the blow, rust and sharp edges poking through the worn gloves of his Nightwing costume. Tense, suffocating silence settled between them, broken by the flickering buzz of the dimming overhead lights and Dick’s own rough, heavy breathing.</p><p>Do it. Again,” he bit out, shoulders shaking as Wally moved.</p><p>He listened, for a bit, to the switches being flipped. The keys clicked. The groan of cobbled-together machinery as it came slowly to life. He swallowed. His hands shook.</p><p>“Sorry,” he said, barely a whisper but more than loud enough in the cramped, empty space they’d carved out. A safe haven and their own little slice of hell all wrapped up into one.</p><p>“It’s fine.”</p><p>It wasn’t fine. It was never fine. I would never <em>be</em> fine.</p><p>But they’d been lying to themselves long enough, now, that Dick wouldn’t call it out.</p><p>“It’ll work this time.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>It was a condemnation ringing in Dick’s ears. A judgment — an accusation — in his best friend’s voice. A testament to every failure that had led them to this point again.</p><p>And again.</p><p>And again.</p><p>Wally flipped the last few switches in quick succession and stepped back as lightning crackled to life between them. The machine sputtered and choked the same way it always did before roaring to life. Dick turned around, bracing his weight on the console as he moved. Wally’s eyes glowed in the brief flashes of blue light.</p><p>“It’ll work.”</p><p>Dick didn’t know who he was trying to convince.</p><p>He closed his eyes and pictured Bruce standing across from him the first time, ragged and worn and bleeding as he rasped out the instructions to build what should be an impossible contraption. When he opened them it was Wally — bandaged and tired, with oil smudged across his nose and hands — on the other side of the same machine Dick had built a little over a dozen times, now.</p><p>“It’ll work.”</p><p>Dick’s heart climbed up into his throat when Wally nodded, mouth set in a thin, grim line. Ice settled in Dick’s veins, sharp as knives under his skin, as they walked up to the messy, wired mechanism that would send them back to the start.</p><p>“It has to work,” he whispered, and the words tasted like ash.  </p><p>They always tasted like ash.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://starculler.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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